This seemed like a great starting point for our user trust system. Thus, Discourse offers five user trust levels. Your current trust level is visible on your user page, and a summary of all trust levels within your community is presented on your dashboard.

Trust Level 0 — New

By default, all new users start out at trust level 0, meaning trust has yet to be earned. These are visitors who just created an account, and are still learning the community norms and the way your community works. New users’ abilities are restricted for safety – both theirs and yours.

(We also want to hide any “advanced” functionality from new users to make the UI less confusing for them as they gain more experience.)

Users at trust level 0 cannot …

Send personal messages to other users

“Reply as new topic” via Link button (UI removed)

Flag posts

Post more than 1 image

Post any attachments

Post more than 2 hyperlinks in a post

Have actual links in the ‘about me’ field of their profile (will be silently and temporarily converted to plain text)

Mention more than 2 users in a post

Post more than 3 topics

Post more than 10 replies

Admins can change these limitations by searching for newuser and first_day in site settings.

Trust Level 1 — Basic

At Discourse, we believe reading is the most fundamental and healthy action in any community. If a new user is willing to spend a little time reading, they will quickly be promoted to the first trust level.

Get to trust level 1 by…

Entering at least 5 topics

Reading at least 30 posts

Spend a total of 10 minutes reading posts

Users at trust level 1 can…

Use all core Discourse functions; all new user restrictions are removed

Send PMs

Upload images and attachments if enabled

Edit wiki posts

Flag posts

Admins can change these thresholds by searching for tl1 in site settings.

Trust Level 2 — Member

Members keep coming back to your community over a series of weeks; they have not only read, but actively participated long and consistently enough to be trusted with full citizenship.

Get to trust level 2 by…

Visiting at least 15 days, not sequentially

Casting at least 1 like

Receiving at least 1 like

Replying to at least 3 different topics

Entering at least 20 topics

Reading at least 100 posts

Spend a total of 60 minutes reading posts

Users at trust level 2 can…

Use the “Invite others to this topic” button for one-click onboarding of new users to participate in topics

Invite outside users to PMs making a group PM

Daily like limit increased by 1.5×

Admins can change these thresholds by searching for tl2 in site settings.

Trust Level 3 — Regular

Regulars are the backbone of your community, the most active readers and reliable contributors over a period of months, even years. Because they’re always around, they can be further trusted to help tidy up and organize the community.

To get to trust level 3, in the last 100 days…

Must have visited at least 50% of days

Must have replied to at least 10 different topics

Of topics created in the last 100 days, must have viewed 25% (capped at 500)

Of posts created in the last 100 days, must have read 25% (capped at 20k)

Must have received 20 likes, and given 30 likes.*

Must not have received more than 5 spam or offensive flags (with unique posts and unique users for each, confirmed by a moderator)

Must not have been suspended

* These likes must be across a minimum number of different users (1/5 the number), across a minimum number of different days (1/4 the number). Likes cannot be from PMs.

All of the above criteria must be true to achieve trust level 3. Furthermore, unlike other trust levels, you can lose trust level 3 status. If you dip below these requirements in the last 100 days, you will be demoted back to Member. However, in order to avoid constant promotion/demotion situations, there is a 2-week grace period immediately after gaining Trust Level 3 during which you will not be demoted.

Users at trust level 3 can…

Recategorize and rename topics

Access a secure category only visible to users at trust level 3 and higher

Have all their links followed (we remove automatic nofollow)

TL3 spam flags cast on TL0 user posts immediately hide the post

TL3 flags cast on TL0 user posts in sufficient diversity will auto-silence the user and hide all their posts

Make their own posts wiki (that is, editable by any TL1+ users)

Daily like limit increased by 2×

Admins can change these thresholds by searching for TL3 in site settings.

Trust Level 4 — Leader

Leaders are regulars who have been around forever and seen everything. They set a positive example for the community through their actions and their posts. If you need advice, these are the folks you turn to first, and they’ve earned the highest level of community trust, such that they are almost moderators within the community already.

Get to trust level 4 by…

Manual promotion by staff only

(Possibly via a to-be-developed election system in the future)

Users at trust level 4 can…

Edit all posts

Pin/unpin topic

Close topics

Archive topics

Make topics unlisted

Split and merge topics

Daily like limit increased by 3×

Any TL4 flag cast on any post immediately takes effect and hides the target post

We believe this trust system has been a success so far, as it leads to stronger, more sustainable communities by carefully empowering members, regulars, and leaders to curate and lead their own communities. But like everything else in Discourse, the trust system is evolving over time as we gain more experience with more communities. We’ll continue to update this post with any changes.

Thank you for consolidating this documentation! Trust levels (and consolidation of knowledge over time) are two “features” that make Discourse so special.

codinghorror:

“Reply as new topic” via Link button (UI removed)

UI was removed but now exists again via the arrow key next to the topic title in the editor:

Maybe one point that you could insist on @codinghorror, is that trust levels help combat spam effectively, as damage requires involvement. You only mention it once in a bullet point, but it could definitely be part of the introductory bullet points:

codinghorror:

TL3 spam flags cast on TL0 user posts immediately hide the post

I’d be curious to read from long-time admins who have experimented with changing trust levels for their communities. How many leaders do you have? Do you actually use their organizational privileges?

Hi Jeff, In order for a forum user to reach the next trust level do they need to meet all of the requirements listed for each trust level or do they only need to meet one of the requirements? It’s not clear on the blog post.

Jeff, Thank you for the clarification. I understand the importance of gates, however if they are too restrictive some users may feel dissatisfaction with the fact basic forum functionality like sending private messages is locked behind a gate which they did not know existed.

The Age of Empires community, of which I am a volunteer moderator, recently switched from Vanilla to Discourse and I am learning the ropes of Discourse. Overall I am very happy with Discourse.